The like sense of an
inscrutable but spiritually necessary tendency in events is still
traceable as an obscure element in current popular belief, as
shown, for instance, by the well-accredited maxim, "Thrice is he
armed who knows his quarrel just," -- a maxim which retains much
of its significance for the average unreflecting person even in
the civilized communities of today. The modern reminiscence of
the belief in the hamingia, or in the guidance of an unseen hand,
which is traceable in the acceptance of this maxim is faint and
perhaps uncertain; and it seems in any case to be blended with
other psychological moments that are not clearly of an animistic
character.
For the purpose in hand it is unnecessary to look more closely
into the psychological process or the ethnological line of
descent by which the later of these two animistic
apprehensions of propensity is derived from the earlier. This
question may be of the gravest importance to folk-psychology or
to the theory of the evolution of creeds and cults. The same is
true of the more fundamental question whether the two are related
at all as successive phases in a sequence of development.
Reference is here made to the existence of these questions only
to remark that the interest of the present discussion does not
lie in that direction.
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